BMW
Metaverse factory planning and vehicle development
BMW Group is utilising metaverse technologies to plan and develop its upcoming electric vehicle plant in Debrecen, Hungary, scheduled to open in 2025. This marks BMW Group's first entirely virtual facility planning and validation in partnership with NVIDIA. The project adopts a digital-first strategy, employing NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise, a platform for constructing and managing 3D industrial metaverse applications, to validate and optimise intricate manufacturing systems, including layouts, robotics, and logistics, through real-time digital twin simulations.
Previously working across various tools with different levels of details and transparency, improved interoperability enabled the team to identify, discuss, and improve critical situations with a unified digital twin connected via USD. Additionally, there’s work in progress to improve the usability and feature scope of tools.
BMW Group aims to gradually integrate all pertinent product, process, quality, and cost data into Omniverse, alongside ongoing development, planning, and production processes and a transition of the infrastructure to cloud to scale for productive use. Additionally, future enhancements to the platform are anticipated to encompass "invisible" processes like energy and resource consumption tracking. Furthermore, BMW Group expects to leverage Omniverse to swiftly identify operational issues, minimising production downtimes. Including the 3D scan of all production sites, it’s part of a global strategy to move from virtual images to vivid digital twins.
From a BMW perspective, the metaverse is a virtual environment that utilises technologies like VR, AR, IoT, AI, and blockchain to enhance the entire automotive value chain. It enables immersive design experiences, seamless integration of physical and digital assets, and personalised interactions with customers.
The planning process for manufacturing facilities involves intricate coordination across various tools, datasets, and specialists globally. The integration of digital twins and virtual reality facilitated by Omniverse simplifies collaboration across locations and time zones and enables teams to collaborate seamlessly across virtual factories and achieve a unified perspective. This collaborative approach leads to fast and joint decision processes and increased efficiency, time and cost-wise, as it eliminates costly reorganisation after a production system has been built in real for BMW Group.
